Agrarian Question Research Articles

Land questions in the 21st Century Postcolony

AbstractThe question of land, its commodification and role in capital accumulation has come to occupy centre stage in political economy since the last decade of the 20th century. Such concerns are however not confined to the agrarian question as in classical political economy but have emerged primarily in the wake of land being integrated into circuits of speculative capital accumulation constituting novel processes of dispossession. This financialization of land and accompanying processes of dispossession, often justified through neoliberal developmentalism, not only has consequences for agrarian actors and ecologies but also poses questions about the role of land in current accumulation dynamic, especially in transitioning economies in the global South. Based on a review of three recently published books on the contemporary land question and politics around it in India, this essay explores how such incorporations and dispossessions are driven by multiple developmental imperatives and asks what such logics mean for conceptualizing the land question in the 21st century.

The agrarian question in the activity of the provincial nobility liberal front of northern Ukraine (80th ХІХ с.)

The aim of the article is to introduce into international scientific circulation "Journals of Congresses of Farmers of Chernihiv Province" - an important source on the history of the Zemstvo liberal movement in northern Left Bank Ukraine.The methodological basis of the work was content analysis, principles of scientific synthesis, generalization and comprehensiveness. The scientific novelty of the work is that, in fact, for the first time in historiography, the question of the urgent need to study the agrarian question in the activities of the provincial nobility Liberal Party of Northern Ukraine as an organic and integral part of economic policy of this political current in the liberation movement of the Russian Empire Reforms Conclusions. The author of the article came to the conclusion that the found "Journals of Congresses of Farmers of the Chernihiv Province" reveal the essence of the agrarian policy of the opposition aristocratic front of the region. Content analysis of magazine protocols shows that congresses of farmers, in the conditions of extremely short liberalization of public life of the Russian Empire in the early 80s of the XIX century, became an effective tool in forming the foundations of agrarian policy and economic programs of the provincial nobility Liberal Party of Northern Ukraine. The agrarian question occupied, though not the leading, but a proper place in the coordinate system of the economic program of provincial nobility liberalism. It should be acknowledged that the opposition aristocratic front of the region before the provincial nobility counter-reform of 1890 considered it premature to pose the problem of fundamental modernization of the agrarian system of the Russian Empire: both because of the policy of industrial protectionism of the supreme power, and because of the financial incompleteness of the peasant reform of Olexander II.

Food Security and Revolution in the Middle East and North Africa: agrarian questions in Egypt and Tunisia by Habib Ayeb and Ray Bush London: Anthem Press, 2019. Pp. 216. $125 (hbk).

Food Security and Revolution in the Middle East and North Africa: agrarian questions in Egypt and Tunisia by Habib Ayeb and Ray Bush London: Anthem Press, 2019. Pp. 216. $125 (hbk).

The Micropolitics of Class and Class Consciousness:

In classical Marxism, the logic of class struggle is located in the antagonism between two major classes of the capitalist system. However, the “agrarian question,” and uneven development of capitalism across the globe – along with colonial and postcolonial realities – have problematized the bipolar idea of class and revolutionary politics. Bangladeshi writer Akhtaruzzaman Elias’ fictions embody the contradictions arising from the disparity between the structural dimension of class and its articulation in emancipatory movements. This paper, focusing its investigation on Elias’ magnum opus Khoabnama, explores the micropolitical and dynamic dimensions of class by addressing Elias’ depiction of the inner contradictions of subjective experiences and internal dialectics of class struggle. The micrological divisions within a class and the implications associated with such divisions are outlined here. Besides, the paper also offers an organic understanding of class consciousness which develops from the subjective experience of exploitation and resistance and the negotiation with the immanent potential of social transformation.

História, crise e luta de classes: a teoria marxista da dependência e a lei do desenvolvimento desigual e combinado / History, crisis and class struggle: the Marxist theory of dependence and the law of unequal and combined development

Este artigo propõe a problematização da teoria da dependência marxista em uma comparação analítica com a Lei do desenvolvimento desigual e combinado. Estas são formulações que têm grande relevância para compreender os desenvolvimentos capitalistas nos países explorados pelo imperialismo e pelas burguesias nacionais. Através das metodologias da História Social e da História Econômica, a pesquisa foi realizada com uma revisão bibliográfica, além do escopo de alguns dados econômicos e estatísticos da situação brasileira, especialmente em relação à questão agrária, que é crucial para o capitalismo no Brasil. No âmbito da comparação das duas teorias, algumas distinções são entendidas em suas propostas de análise, que também expressam a influência das políticas dos grupos comunistas para a formulação da Teoria da dependência marxista em relação à Lei de Leon Trotsky.

O desenvolvimento terrirorial rural no Brasil: uma análise a partir do debate paradigmático

O desenvolvimento territorial ganhou importância nos debates sobre o campo no Brasil nos anos 2000. Levado a cabo principalmente pelo governo federal e incentivado por organismos internacionais, como o Banco Mundial, FAO e BIRD, o desenvolvimento territorial passou a figurar como grande novidade nos trabalhaos acadêmicos, ações das empresas e políticas públicas. Este trabalho avalia a produção sobre o desenvolvimeno territorial a luz do debate paradigmático, mostrando como o Paradigma do Capitalismo Agrário e o Paradigma da Questão Agrária produzem interpretações diferentes sobre o tema. Como metodologia, fazemos uma revisão bibliográfica de dois autores que estão os que mais influênciam a produção brasileira, sendo cada um representante de um paradigma. O artigo se divide em três secções. Na primira, apresentamos o debate paradigmático. Na segunda, o desenvolvimento territorial a partir do Paradigma do capitalismo agrário. Na terceira, o desenvolimento territorial a partir do Paradigma da Questão Agrária. Nosso objetivo é contribuir para que pesquisadores dedicados a questão consigam ter uma nova chave de interpretação sobre o tema.
 Palavras-chave: debate paradigmático; desenvolvimento territorial; paradigma do capitalismo agrário; paradigma da questão agrária; desenvolvimento.

Extended urbanisation and the agrarian question: Convergences, divergences and openings

The question of urbanisation ‘beyond the city’ has generated a lively debate in the fields of urban studies and geography in recent years. This paper brings a key concept from this discussion –‘extended urbanisation’– in conversation with distinct yet related concepts from critical agrarian studies. We briefly review the ‘classic’ agrarian question in order to situate contemporary agrarian questions within the historical geographies of capitalist restructuring since the late-nineteenth century. We then examine a selection of contemporary agrarian scholarship attuned to the interconnectedness of agrarian and urban sociospatial relations to argue that the concept of extended urbanisation and urban studies more generally have much to gain from a closer engagement with this work. To this end, we identify three openings for further analysis: (1) ‘global depeasantisation’ and ‘deruralisation’ as the labour dimensions of extended urbanisation; (2) the co-existence of banal ‘operational landscapes’ with landscapes of high-intensity extraction and agro-industrialisation; and (3) relational periodisations of urbanisation that incorporate successive world-historical ‘food regimes’ and their associated commodity frontiers in order to unearth geohistories of extended urbanisation in colonial and postcolonial contexts. We conclude by rearticulating the ‘right to the city’ in terms of a broader ‘right to space’ as a means of re-centring ongoing struggles against capitalist urbanisation in spaces beyond the city.

POLÍTICA DE DESENVOLVIMENTO RURAL SUSTENTÁVEL NOS CONSELHOS MUNICIPAIS E NO COLEGIADO TERRITORIAL DO ALTO SERTÃO SERGIPANO.

O presente artigo foi elaborado a partir do Curso de Especialização em Residência Agrária (Agroecologia, Questão Agrária, Agroindústria e Cooperativismo), justifica- se pela necessidade da participação popular nas instâncias de Controle Social com vistas a problematizar e propor ações concretas que fortaleçam esta relação. A Constituição de 1988 ratifica a democracia direta no seu Capítulo II - Dos Direitos Sociais, “É assegurada a participação dos trabalhadores e empregadores nos colegiados dos órgãos públicos em que seus interesses profissionais ou previdenciários sejam objeto de discussão e deliberação” (art.10), ou seja, o debate em espaços coletivos para a exposição de ideias, propostas e ações de decisão. O objetivo geral da pesquisa foi investigar como se dá a articulação do Colegiado Territorial do Alto Sertão Sergipano com os CMDRS para ampliar o Controle Social das Políticas de Desenvolvimento Rural Sustentável, e, ao mesmo tempo reforçar essa relação. Para isso foram cumpridos objetivos específicos: acompanhar a dinâmica do Colegiado Territorial do Alto Sertão Sergipano; investigar a legislação e as Políticas de Desenvolvimento Sustentável e socializar os resultados da pesquisa e apoiar o processo de aproximação entre Colegiado e CMDRS. Este trabalho se orienta pelo método dialético, por aproximar-se da realidade concreta dos sujeitos históricos em sua dinâmica e contradições. Em busca de compreender a participação popular nos conselhos gestores e no colegiado territorial do Alto Sertão Sergipano a metodologia da pesquisa utilizada foi a entrevista semiestruturada com 10 pessoas, sendo 06 dos CMDRS priorizando-se representantes da sociedade civil.
 
 Palavras – Chave: Política de Desenvolvimento Rural Sustentável. Conselhos Municipais de Desenvolvimento Rural Sustentável. Colegiado Territorial de Desenvolvimento Rural Sustentável.

Agrarian history in Uruguay: From the “agrarian question” to the present

This paper analyses Uruguayan historiography on agrarian and rural themes from 1970 to the present. It is not a directory of authors or contributions, nor does it present bibliometric indicators to describe the agrarian historiography of Uruguay. The main point of this article is that the rise and fall of Uruguayan rural historiography depict the life cycle of what Imre Lakatos called a research programme (Lakatos, 1983). This research programme was born in the 1950s and had its progressive stage between 1960–89. From then to the beginning of the new century, the programme underwent what is called the regressive stage in Lakatos’s terms. This article closes with some references to the main lines of what may be an emerging research programme. I hope that the Uruguayan case may contribute to a broader reflection on Latin American rural historiography during the last five decades.

Does the Arab region have an agrarian question?

ABSTRACT Discussion on food sovereignty and agro-ecology, and Anglophone rural sociology have blind spots when it comes to the Middle East/North African (Arab) region. This article explores them; outlines some initial concepts, discusses avenues for research, and notes some socio-political features of the region which make it distinct from others. It focuses on the necessity to include war and the national question to understand the regional agrarian question and advances and retreats in regional knowledge production. It proceeds by (1) establishing the relative absence of the region from the leading peasant studies journals; (2) synthesizing the region’s political economy and waves of knowledge production; (3) highlighting local traditions which speak to the questions of food sovereignty and agro-ecology; and (4) listing a series of theoretical, historical, and analytical avenues which remain to be addressed.

Land reform in the Second Polish Republic

AbstractWhen Poland was re-established as an independent state one hundred years ago, one of its political priorities was to implement a land reform, as the ‘agrarian question’ was an extremely sensitive socio-economic problem. In Poland at that time, two thirds of its inhabitants made their living by working in the agricultural sector. A ‘land craving’ phenomenon was notorious, as was rural poverty, especially among smallholders. On the other hand, almost half of the total area of farmland in the Second Polish Republic was held by huge landowners. The situation led to ever louder political calls for land redistribution to peasant smallholders. The Land Reform Implementation Act of 1920, and its amendment of 1925, laid legal foundations for land redistribution. By the Second World War, 2,654,800 hectares of land had undergone redistribution, as a result of which 734,100 new farms were established. However, this land reform did not achieve its goal, namely the empowering of efficient smaller farms, as quantitative analysis showed a continuing process of agricultural land fragmentation.

Appearances can be Deceptive: Political Polarization, Agrarian Policy, and Coalitional Presidentialism in Brazil

What can we infer about the effect of polarized politics on the Brazilian policy‐making process? We attempt to answer this question by analyzing the country's political landscape and focusing on one specific policy issue concerning agrarian policies, an area that is exposed to much ideological conflict for both the left and right wing. We show how the mechanism has worked in this case to mitigate the polarization effects. Two political groups monopolized national elections over the past two decades sharing very different positions concerning ideological preferences. In this article, we recognize polarization between the two leading parties, but argue that the Brazilian political system features the dynamics of coalitional presidentialism that mitigates party preferences. We analyze funding data for small farmers and rural settlements for the period 1995‐2016, arriving at the conclusion that the agrarian policy of the competing parties resembled one another, despite political polarization.Related ArticlesOndetti, Gabriel. 2008. “Up and Down with the Agrarian Question: Issue Attention and Land Reform in Contemporary Brazil.” Politics & Policy 36 (4): 510‐541. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2008.00120.xSegatto, Catarina Ianni, and Daniel Béland. 2018. “The Limits of Partisanship: Federalism, the Role of Bureaucrats, and the Path to Universal Health Care Coverage in Brazil.”Politics & Policy 46 (3): 416‐441. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12252Wolff, Michael Jerome. 2019. “Sharing Authority: The Politics and Practice of Community Policing in the Brazilian Slum.” Politics & Policy 47 (4): 748‐774. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12322

Православные священники во II Государственной думе Российской империи

This article examines the involvement of Orthodox priests in the legislative work of the State Duma of the Russian Empire of the 2nd convocation (1907). Turning to the materials of liberal and conservative periodicals, the author considers the public opinion on the priests’ participation in elections and their activity in the Duma. Examples are given of the use of repression against priests put forward as opposition candidates during the elections to the State Duma. The author demonstrates the distribution of the clerics by factions, as well as their age, education level and position in the Church hierarchy. Further, the article analyses the speeches made by the priest deputies in the State Duma on highly important issues: abolition of death penalty and military courts, attitude towards political terror and political prisoners, as well as the agrarian question. Differences in the political views among the clerical deputies are indicated, e.g. on various punishments for the crimes committed. In addition, measures taken by the Synod against certain priest deputies connected with their activity in the State Duma and absence from the Duma meeting over the plot against Nicholas II are considered. Among the most active clerical members the following can be named: F.V. Tikhvinsky, Bishop Eulogius and Bishop Platon. The author concludes that the priests’ participation in the elections to and the work of the State Duma was a way for the authorities to exert pressure both on the voters and the deputies through the moral authority of the Church. At the same time, attempts to impose ecclesiastical punishment on the left-wing clerical deputies were seen as an infringement on the independence and freedom of opinion of the State Duma members.

Towards an agrarian question of circulation: Walmart's expansion in Chile and the agrarian political economy of supply chain capitalism

AbstractThe central role that infrastructures of circulation and connectivity—logistical, financial, and digital—have come to perform in the reproduction of agro‐food systems calls for an expanded conception of agriculture that integrates dialectically the production of economic value and its subsequent realization in the sphere of exchange. Through the case of Walmart's expansion in Chile, and on the basis of a critical theorization of the circulation of capital, this paper proposes an agrarian question of circulation in which the apparently distinct realms of food production, transport, storage, and consumption are brought together into a contradictory and yet unitary whole. The case of Walmart Chile is illustrative of how the reconfiguration of spaces of urban mass consumption and the organizational restructuring of agro‐industrial hinterlands constitute each other in intricate ways. An agrarian question of circulation, the paper concludes, bears important political implications for rethinking the scope and extent of contemporary discussions on agrarian reform being put forward by transnational rural organizations.

Degrowth and critical agrarian studies

ABSTRACTDegrowth refers to a radical politico-economic reorganisation that leads to smaller and more equitable social metabolisms. Degrowth posits that such a transition is indispensable but also desirable. However, the conditions of its realisation require more research. This article argues that critical agrarian studies (CAS) and degrowth can enrich each other. The Agrarian Question and the Growth Question should be addressed in concert. While degrowth should not fall into the ‘agrarian myth', CAS should not embrace the ‘myth of growth', even when green and socialist. Ideas of one philosopher and four agrarian economists are presented, with illustrations from Bhutan, Cuba and North America, hoping to offer a preliminary research agenda for ‘agrarian degrowth’.

M. Tugan-Baranovsky on Ways to Solve the Agrarian Question in the Dnieper Ukraine in the Early Twentieth Century

M. Tugan-Baranovsky on Ways to Solve the Agrarian Question in the Dnieper Ukraine in the Early Twentieth Century

The Relations of Rural Community to Other Branches of Social Sciences

This publication is the translation of the speech “The Relations of the Rural Community to Other Branches of Social Sciences” given by Max Weber at the International Congress of Arts and Science in St. Louis (Missouri, USA) in September, 1904. In this speech, Weber examines several prevailing themes that are characteristic for his understanding of modernity. The first of them — the narrowest one — is related to the transformation of the agrarian sector of Germany, and the significance of the “agrarian question” for the historical destinies of the German nation in the context of differences between the east, west, and south regions of the country. The second important topic of the speech is the analysis of the general dynamics in the formation and development of modernity in Europe against the backdrop of the confrontation between two structural principles, defined by Weber as “tradition” and “capitalism”. Finally, the third prevailing topic covered in the speech is a comparative analysis of European and American modernity, substantiated by the German classic in the shape of comparative historical sociology.

Аграрне питання в теорії та практиці управлінської діяльності М. Бунге: фінансово-правовий аспект

Аграрне питання в теорії та практиці управлінської діяльності М. Бунге: фінансово-правовий аспект

AGRARIAN MIGRATIONS OF POLTAVA LAND’S POPULATION AT THE TURN OF 20TH CENTURY: CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES

The article described the socio-economic and political factors predetermining the formation of migratory sentiment among the unprivileged states of Poltava Governorate in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. An important place among the various reasons for migration of the Poltava country people was taken by an economically unique social group such as the Cossacks who included about half of the small agricultural producers of the Poltava region at that time . The paper determine the scale of agrarian migrations, main regions of settlement and consequences of mass resettlement movements in both the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth century when the famous Stolypin agrarian reform stated in the Russian Empire. Using as an example of agrarian migration of peasants, Cossacks and petty bourgeois farmers who constituted the bulk of the population category such as unprivileged states a clear trend in the evolution of the tsarist immigration policy is discernible from its prohibition in the first decades after the abolition of serfdom law in 1861 up to freedom of migration during the years of Stolypin agrarian reform. The migrations from the densely populated provinces of the European part of the empire to its eastern and south-eastern outskirts, progressive in terms of the clearing of virgin lands and their inclusion in agricultural production, could have a much more noticeable economic effect, if the state administration of the Russian Empire were able to fully implement the promises stated in the relevant legislative acts to organize transportation of the settlers’ families and their property to the settlement regions determined by the related government programs along with providing the newcomers with proper credit resources. It is the failure of implementation of basic legal acts on meeting the material needs of the settlers by both the central and local authorities that led in some cases to the tragic fate of those unlucky hundreds of thousands of migrant settlers who were not only unable to organize their tidy arable farms at the new location, but had to pass from this life through insufficient medical care and terrible conditions of existence in the deep taiga or waterless steppe. The fate of those families who, after an unsuccessful resettlement, were forced to return to their homeland was not much better – they had no longer land or homes. So the fixation of Pyotr Stolypin’s government on resettlement as a means of resolving the agrarian question collapsed, resulting in the fact the social conflicts among agrarians not only did not disappear, but, on the contrary, were even more escalated.

«Виоленсия» как феномен колумбийской политической культуры: к истории генезиса

Modern Colombia is distinguished from other Latin American countries by the decades-long armed conflict between government forces and guerrilla organizations. The origin of the guerilla (guerrilla war) was directly related to the unresolved agrarian question and the preservation of latifundism. This long-standing confrontation between the state and the rebels has a devastating impact on all the spheres of life of Colombians and results in thousands of deaths annually. Violence in various forms has become part and parcel of social and political life, affecting the worldview of Colombians and the formation of national identity. The article focuses on the peculiarities of modern political culture in Colombia and attempts to identify the reasons for the emergence of the guerrilla movement, which remains relevant to this day. The armed conflict is rooted in the so-called “violencia”, generated by the struggle for the hegemony of traditional political parties (Liberal and Conservative) in the 20th century. “Violencia” in a broad sense includes a whole hierarchy of violence in different spheres of life: violence against indigenous people, segregation, long-standing machismo and cacicism. The spread of violence has even led to the emergence of a special science in Colombia — “violenciology”. Experts in violenciology are trying to understand the cause and effect of this phenomenon. The study of the history of the formation of “violencia” allows us to answer the question of why violence has become an integral part of Colombian culture and way of life. To meet this end, the author focused on the events of the 1940s, when, amidst the large-scale repression, Colombia witnessed the emergence of the charismatic political leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitan. His nonconformist ideas and the broad social movement he led raised serious concerns among supporters of the two-party oligarchy. The murder of Gaitan 9 April 1948 led to a popular protest — “Bogotaso” and retaliatory violence from the state, forming a new cultural factor affecting the ways of life of Colombians.